With an aging population and workforce and burnout since the pandemic, a nursing shortage is worsening across the country, but there’s a new partnership in South Jersey with the goal of filling those open positions. “My grandmother was a nurse and I grew up watching her help people so I want to be just like her,” said Gabriela Yachi, a senior at LEAP Academy Charter School in Camden.
Yachi is determined to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps. She’s enrolled in a partnership between the LEAP Academy and Rutgers-Camden, which empowers high schoolers to pursue nursing degrees while earning college credits. “I think it’s a really great program because when I get in college, I will be in my sophomore year,” Yachi said. Seniors at the LEAP Academy take a full course load of college classes and graduate with at least 30 credits, but this is the first year the school introduced a nursing cohort as a nursing shortage worsens across the country. To read the full story.